Think about the USD and its value. It's a mixed bag of socioeconomic interactions and market confidence relative to other currencies. For the most part, money is a form of social currency and they hinge upon market perception. Something can be said about the way we use money as a tool in our everyday lives.

There is a culture to money

For better or worse, this is where I see STEEM embodying the will of its users, moreso than any other currencies out there. STEEM is what we make of it through simple freedoms of expression on this voluntary platform - communicate and vote. By simply using this platform, one is necessarily laying out their social expressions on the table for others to judge, or ignore.

All said, I believe that a culture of open-source communities are highly valuable and its effects will be greatly amplified when it starts to grow on mainstream users. As Steemit's 2017 roadmap puts it, great culture should be reflected through the details of the platform as part of their ethos for deliberate, reasoned design.

So the title of this post is really the spirit of open-source communities in full circle. As a minor contributor in some of the older open-source projects in my previous life, I've always thought that it would be great if there's a way to reward communities of voluntary contributors that spend their days and nights doing what they love to see succeed. This is where I see STEEM's low-barrier method of reciprocation in response to the spirit of contribution, to be a game-changer.

In that, every action on STEEM is to be framed as contribution and reciprocation. There are no guaranteed entitlements, and it's simply up to the free-market to decide on the value of contributions.

Respecting free-decisions made by community members

Personally, I don't think that anything is ever going to solve how people feel about downvotes / flags, unless if payouts and voting list can somehow be masked without compromising the accountability of users in the platform. That said, the ethos of free-expression should be emphasised as part of the design in any STEEM-based apps like Steemit.

There's nothing inherently wrong about downvotes, just as there's nothing inherently right about upvotes. Such a reality should be made clear to new users to reduce any sense of aggravation. After all, we are our own government on this platform, and supply regulation is up to the many activities generated by community members.

As a side note: respecting here also means respecting the right for others to freely express themselves here. Personally, I'm alright with the experiment going on for a while with notice. But it's just plain divisive to put an embargo for certain whales from exercising their stakes on the platform, especially for such extended periods of time.

Conclusion

In short, let's build and encourage a valuable culture that revolves around the pillars of:-

• Contribution (without entitlement)
• Reciprocation (without obligation)
• Respect (self-restrain / self-control)

In the event of any perceived abuse, be rest assured that the community will have a discourse to help each other solve any reasonable issues, and it would be best to adhere to the cultural pillars above. Of course, all without discouraging critical inputs by community members.

While I'm pretty sure the many different pockets of communities that will spring up in the future would have their own house rules in sub-communities, just like subreddits - I believe that we can cultivate valuable behaviours which will ultimately add to the value of the network. I know these codes of conduct are commonplace in communities all around the Internet, my point is to emphasise it here again because the culture in which we transact in greatly affects the perceived value of STEEM itself. This write-up is not an attempt to homogenise people, and I hope we can agree that a shared, collective space could benefit from the spirit of open-source communities.

All said, discouragement does not necessitate downvotes / flags even though it's up to each participating community members to decide. I just happen to think there are better ways to do things and downvoting / flagging has its negative effects on certain members of the community - make no mistake about it, even though it's ultimately up to each user to respect free-market decisions, and take any perceived issues up for public deliberation, if any.

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_{Follow me @kevinwong}